The subcommittee drafts the Senate's version of NASA's annual
appropriation, and the full Appropriations Committee is where the Senate
decides where it wants America's space dollars to go.

The ranking minority position puts Shelby in line to chair the subcommittee if Republicans retake the Senate in 2014. But until then, NASA has another person who understands its issues at the top. Chairwoman of the science subcommittee is Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who has NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in her state. Also on the science subcommittee is Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., whose state is home to hundreds of aerospace and defense workers living just across the state line from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Shelby is also a member of the Appropriations Committee's subcommittees on defense and energy and water development. The defense subcommittee gives him influence over military spending of the kind that has expanded the Army's Huntsville role in recent years. Alexander also sits on the defense subcommittee.

Shelby's final appropriations seat is on the subcommittee for labor, health and human services and education.